Series: January 2025
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"I’m Here – God is Holding Our Life Series"
True story, my uncle told me about one of his neighbors, and older lady. Younger man comes to the door. Woman answers. Man asks, “Have you found Jesus?”
Woman, without missing a beat, says, “Oh, dear, is he lost again.”
It’s a perfect response. We have this image of looking for God, as if God isn’t here, even as we always say “God is everywhere.” No, we go about our lives as if God is elsewhere; happiness, peace, is always around the corner, with the next job, the next partner, the next week. Sometimes we would rather look out there so we don’t have to deal with what’s right here. I’m not suggesting we make no changes in our lives, only that the internal resources to make those changes are right here.
When I was a graduate student in rhetoric, I worked on a research project on the 100 greatest speeches of the 20thcentury.[1] One was by a man named Russell Conwell, Baptist Minister, philanthropist, founder of Temple University. Conwell gave versions of a speech called “Acres of Diamonds” over 6,000 times. It featured a tale about a Persian farmer who spent his life and his fortune, auctioning off his land, in search of a mine of diamonds, only to find the diamonds were in his back yard, the one he sold.
As you know, we are in a series featuring the Psalms, “God is holding our life.” Listen to the assurance of God’s imminent presence as we read the 139thPsalm in three parts.
Psalm 139
Reader 1
1O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night’,
12even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Reader 2
13For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
Those lines may well be familiar. They’re often used church to comfort people. God is there wherever we go, even unto Sheol, the abode of the dead in Hebrew tradition. Okay, so God is with us in every moment and can take whatever we pray. What difference does it make? Is it just another platitude? Our religion and culture is full of them: “What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger,” “God is My Co-pilot.” How exactly is God your Co-pilot? I prefer the bumper stickers, “Dog is My Co-pilot.” I’m actually a “Cat is my Co-pilot” kind of guy, but I don’t want to be divisive in these times.
To further complicate the matter, listen to the rest of this psalm, a portion we do not frequently read in church, at least in earshot of the children.
Reader 3
19O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20those who speak of you maliciously,
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
In the difficulty of this portion, we find an opening to how this psalm may help us in tangible ways. We’ve said the psalms make room for every emotion. Anger at the seemingly wicked seemingly winning and bitterness at those who mock what we hold dear are certainly human emotions. Even this portion of the psalm presumes an intimacy. It’s affirms that God doesn’t run when we share tough things. In fact, by being open to hearing such prayers, God takes the violence from us and releases us from bondage to it. The Apostle Paul, the Book of Deuteronomy both speak of leaving vengeance to God (Romans 12:19, Deuteronomy 32:35) and one way to do so is by talking to God about it.
Add to this, the reality that the psalmist is offering us a deep-seeded security waiting at the heart of every moment, one that allows us to live out of our best selves, love as our best selves. I always have what I need to do what I need to do. Franciscan Richard Rohr cautions us not to look for security in our religion, but he's talking about a more basic sort of material security, a promise we will never experience harm or hardship. We know otherwise. This is security in a deeper sense. It comes in the form of being able to receive whatever comes and respond with a strong and engaged love.
We know what that feels like, both to live out of our best and engaged selves and to function frazzled because we are cut off from our source and strength. I’ve just gotten around to finishing Ken Burns PBS documentary, The Vietnam War. There’s a scene in it when a veteran was reflects back on his experience and his actions. He recalls killing someone and what he says is in that moment there were two victims, the other and his civilized self.
To live in full awareness of God’s presence is to recognize the sacredness of the other and behave accordingly, not necessarily approvingly, but with strong and connected love. To respond otherwise is to temporarily sever the tie to God. In 2013, the Dalai Lama condemned Buddhist attacks on Muslims in Myanmar, saying, “I pray for them (the monks) to think of the face of Buddha”[2]when they are tempted to commit such violence. Jesus, of course, taught similarly. When we hurt others we forget who they are and we have forgotten who we are in the One. Whenever someone tries to get you to forget who you are so you can do harm to another, be very wary of what they’re up to.
Let’s acknowledge it takes an incredible awareness and effort to keep connected to God, even in moments far less dramatic than war. That’s why when we’re tired or stressed, improperly nourished or unhealthy in body, mind, or spirit, when our relationships are disordered, we put ourselves in vulnerable positions. Bringing ourselves back to the presence of God in every moment is called a spiritual practicefor a reason. It takes attentiveness. The more aware we can be, the better we can be in every situation. Unfortunately, the very things we can do to cultivate that awareness are the ones we deem as the most optional. “There’s so much to get done.” But, if we’re connected, we’ll do all that other stuff better, more aligned with who we really are. When we’re aware of the divine presence we’re far better able to find the treasures and make the changes we need because we’re not always chasing some external or distant answer. This is what allows us to face a world we would not always choose.
Fortunately, in the Christian tradition we believe sometimes even when we can’t maintain the connection on our end, God comes knocking on the door. In Christianity, we call that grace. Same Vietnam documentary, different veteran. He tells of entering a deep depression after returning home, so much so that he flirts with suicide on several occasions. Finally, one day he decides it’s the day he’s going to go through with it. It comes almost with a feeling of relief. He’s sitting inside his house, gun in his hand, same model he had in the service, and then he hears this sound at his back door that just won’t stop. It’s his dog who he has let out and it’s desperately trying to get back in. Who better to remind us? Maybe Dog really is our co-pilot. For those of you who love dogs, if you have hard time loving like God, start by loving like the best dog you know.
You can choose to try and go it alone but why wouldn’t we want to tap into the source of life? God is here. Why not be in touch?
That same uncle I mentioned at the outset, he might describe himself as a Jungian. He’s spent years offering spiritual guidance and direction to those trying to navigate this life, some searching, some running. Above the door to the study where he saw his clients he had the same sign that Carl Jung had posted over his study door, a quote originating with Erasmus. It was an English rendering of the Latin quote on your bulletin, Vacatus Atque No Vacatus Deus Arderit. Where are my Latin scholars? It translates, “Bidden or Not, God is Here.”
Accept that unbelievable reality and take advantage of what you’ve found or spend your life going door to door without realizing it is you who have gone missing.
Amen.
[1]Stephen E. Lucas, Martin J. Medhurst, “Words of a Century: The Top 100 American speeches, 1900-1999”
[2]https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us/dalai-lama-decries-buddhist-attacks-on-muslims-in-myanmar-idUSBRE9460RD/